


Instinct

by SleepsWithCoyotes



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 16:34:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10442211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SleepsWithCoyotes/pseuds/SleepsWithCoyotes
Summary: Demonic mating rituals. That's...all I got, really.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Archiving old fic from who knows when!
> 
> For the Good Omens kink meme. Prompt: Crowley/Aziraphale; prompt is demonic mating rituals. Or perhaps Serpentine mating rituals. I don't know, but I have this image of Crowley bringing Aziraphale a dead imp or something, or just showing up naked on his doorstep, and I want someone to write it for me. Funny is good. Smut is also good.

He didn't think anything of it at first. Aziraphale had always smelled good to him, and the urge to stand just a little too close and drink his presence in was hardly an unfamiliar one. It was just that he usually drew the line at actually sniffing Aziraphale--or, more accurately, slinking up behind him while the angel was making tea and nuzzling against the base of his neck, breathing deep while the cheerful inanity of Aziraphale's one-sided conversation stuttered to a halt.

"Erm. Crowley?" Aziraphale asked slowly, not quite relaxing but not turning around.

"Yes?"

"What...are you doing, exactly?"

"I don't know," he replied absently, lips brushing the back of Aziraphale's neck.

The angel shivered, and when he turned, there was something both wild and tentative in his eyes. It wasn't the sort of look that made Crowley want to duck the smiting sure to come, but he frowned regardless and backed uncertainly away. That...wasn't right. Something was missing.

"I'll...yeah. Um," he said, making for the door.

"Crowley?"

"Forgot something," he said, well and truly in flight now. Only he had the strangest feeling that he wasn't running _away_ so much as _to._ He just wasn't sure to what. "Sorry about the tea. I'll take a raincheck, okay?"

"But...Crowley--"

It wasn't until he found himself parked outside his flat with no memory of how he'd gotten there that he realized he'd just run out on Aziraphale, an Aziraphale who had very likely been _willing,_ if Crowley had just slowed down long enough to hear his response. What on earth had he done that for?

Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he frowned out the windshield and gnawed his lower lip. It didn't help; his thoughts kept wanting to scatter, and all he could settle on was the entirely unhelpful realization that he didn't want to go upstairs, didn't want to take a calming drive, and certainly didn't want to go back to Aziraphale's bookshop. Or at least not empty-handed.

It was just that he was fairly certain a bottle of wine wasn't quite what the situation called for.

***

If anyone had asked, he'd have said that Hell was the last place one could expect to find one Anthony J. Crowley--willingly, at least--for the _next_ six millennia, and even then he'd have to step lightly around his bosses. Possibly former bosses, but he wasn't willing to count on that beyond the natural lifespan of a certain fair-haired boy, one that wasn't getting any younger. Hell had a long memory, as Crowley was in a position to know.

So it would be safe to say that he was as surprised as the next person to find himself Below, perched on a hunk of volcanic rock while the stench of ash and brimstone sank into one of his favorite suits. There was nothing out this side of Dis but flaming pits and minor imps, nasty little things that looked like an unlikely mating of cherub and gargoyle. If hellhounds were Hell's answer to Dobermans, imps were its equivalent to horseflies: irritating, ubiquitous, but packing a nasty bite.

He watched a few flitting idly about the heads of the damned, swooping in to prod and poke at the unlucky, scuttling out of range again on leathery wings and hooting their wordless, jeering cries. Flutter and dart. Swoop.

_Snap._

Standing unsinged at the bottom of a fiery pit amidst an uneasy circle of the damned, Crowley stared down at the imp he'd struck out of the air with a queasy feeling of horror, his flared wings drooping until the tips sank into the thick bed of ash beneath his feet. He didn't even remember uncasing his wings in the first place, and the terrified looks the damned were giving him--mice before a hawk--put a squirmy feeling of embarrassment in the pit of his stomach.

An apology hovered on the tip of his tongue, and it was the shamed thought that maybe if he just quietly cleaned up the mess and left he could make everything _better_ that made him stoop to collect the dead imp.

Only once he had it, he realized he knew exactly what he'd wanted it for.

***

Aziraphale hadn't thought twice about locking the door to the shop, because Crowley never bothered with locks and was unlikely to start now, no matter how strange he'd seemed the last time they'd talked. He knew something was wrong the moment Crowley entered, though, because Crowley usually _did_ bother with doors.

Oddly enough, the first thing Aziraphale noticed was that Crowley had forgotten his sunglasses somewhere.

"Crowley?" he asked uncertainly, paused halfway to the door himself and staring helplessly at the demon. Crowley had his wings out, and powdery streaks of ash smeared the glossy plumes, his sleek black suit. There was something decidedly odd about his expression, too intense by half, and the narrow slits of his pupils were blown out wide, sparking red at their depths. There was also some sort of _creature_ hanging limply in his left hand, a little the worse for wear but not leaking, at least.

He found himself wondering if this was how humans felt when the family cat left a particularly ripe mouse on the mat, whether he ought to feed the poor boy more, though as far as he knew, a full dish meant nothing to a cat while there were mice to be toyed with.

He held his ground as Crowley stalked closer, because demon or not--out of his confused little mind or not--it was still _Crowley._

Who had just dropped a dead imp at his feet and looked honestly interested in his response to that.

"Crowley," he said again, but that only got him a wary frown, a drawing-in like Crowley might leave again, as if his odd... _advance_ had been rebuffed. Biting his lip and hoping he wasn't going to be expected to _eat_ the thing or anything revolting like that, Aziraphale glanced down at the imp to buy himself some time and up again at Crowley, _knowing_ he was going to get this wrong and wishing for the millionth time that he'd ever had the courage to ask what the Fall had _done_ to them all. Other than the obvious, of course.

It wasn't an especially good purr--he didn't think he'd quite gotten the inflection right, and it came out more tomcat-scratchy than mellow--but it made Crowley smile, his dark lashes draping low and lazy over the mad brilliance of his hungry stare. When Crowley stepped forward and buried his face again in Aziraphale's neck, this time Aziraphale didn't bother with speech; he merely tipped his head to the side and reached out to pull Crowley closer, letting himself be scented and then tasted, sharp teeth scraping oh-so-carefully at the side of his throat.

He might have moaned when Crowley's hands found their way under his shirt and sweater, into his trousers, but Crowley didn't seem to mind that. Nor did he seem averse to being led into the back room, though they didn't quite make it to the couch. One moment he had Crowley licking at the hollow of his throat, forked tongue flicking delicately over his skin, and the next he was on the floor with Crowley crouched over him, eyes glittering, wings spread, claws against his skin where the demon had shredded his clothes away. Panic, his inner voice of reason calmly informed him, was unquestionably the most appropriate response to the situation, being that he was an angel and Crowley was...not himself at the moment.

He reached up instead, threaded a hand through Crowley's mussed hair and dragged him down to trail nips and kisses along Crowley's jaw until he found a good place to bite.

Crowley's response to that was a growling whine and a slow grind of his hips down into Aziraphale's, the strong curl of his hands around Aziraphale's wrists, pinning them to the floor. Aziraphale let him go, licking at the mark he'd made on Crowley's neck and smiling at the unexpected shiver he got when the demon purred back at him. It might not be instinctive for him the way it was with Crowley, but clearly he'd done something right. Now he just had to not scare Crowley off before the end, and to hope the demon would be more himself the next time.

Not that he particularly minded a Crowley driven by instinct, but he didn't care to speculate what the demon would make of a spike in holiness in this state, which meant miracling the floor into something softer was right out.

***

He became aware of things slowly, piecemeal, which wasn't at all natural for him, and only the strangest feeling of comfort and contentment kept him from retreating in confusion. For one thing, he could smell the angel all around him--could _feel_ Aziraphale all around, his untainted aura curled almost protectively around Crowley's own. He recognized the smell of books, the rather awful shade of the backroom's ancient carpet, clean but thin. He knew from the shiver that began at the base of his wings that he was close to his peak, and he knew from Aziraphale's smile that everything was going to be all right, because as much as he claimed not to trust the promises of angels, Aziraphale was always as good as his word.

"Crowley," Aziraphale murmured, and he nearly faltered in his rhythm, because it was Aziraphale's legs wrapped around his hips, Aziraphale's hands clenching on his shoulders, _Aziraphale_ he was pounding into on the bookshop floor. Only Aziraphale didn't look like he minded, just smiled a little wider as Crowley blinked down at him, unable to believe his luck but completely unwilling to question it.

"Aziraphale?"

Or maybe not completely unwilling.

"Don't stop," the angel breathed, very far from unwilling himself, and that was good enough for Crowley.

Afterwards, curled into a tangle of his own wings and Aziraphale's limbs, he lifted his head from the angel's shoulder and peered out the door and into the shop with a quiet noise of disbelief. "Did I really bring you a dead imp, or did I dream that?"

"Never mind," Aziraphale said with a chuckle. It wasn't lost on Crowley that that wasn't a 'no.' "But what brought this on?"

"I don't know," Crowley said with a shrug, allowing himself to be pulled back down. "You smelled...." _Good_ was what he meant to say. "Right," was what actually emerged. "You smelled right for me."

"To you?" Aziraphale attempted to correct him, amused.

Crowley thought about that then shook his head. " _For_ me," he insisted, lying tense and prickly in Aziraphale's arms until the angel pulled him closer.

"Oh," Aziraphale murmured with a smile. "Of course."

Well. So long as they had that clear.


End file.
